. In front, beyond the clear
mirror of motionless water, were the ruins of Alba Longa; on the left
rose Monte Cavo with Rocca di Papa and Palazzuolo; whilst on the right
Castel Gandolfo overlooked the lake as from the summit of a cliff. Down
below in the extinct crater, as in the depths of a gigantic cup of
verdure, the lake slept heavy and lifeless: a sheet of molten metal,
which the sun on one side streaked with gold, whilst the other was black
with shade. And the road then ascended all the way to Castel Gandolfo,
which was perched on its rock, like a white bird betwixt the lake and the
sea. Ever refreshed by breezes, even in the most burning hours of summer,
the little place was once famous for its papal villa, where Pius IX loved
to spend hours of indolence, and whither Leo XIII has never come. And
next the road dipped down, and the ilex-trees appeared again, ilex-trees
famous for their size, a double row of monsters with twisted limbs, two
and three hundred years old. Then one at last reached Albano, a small
town less modernised and less cleansed than Frascati, a patch of the old
land which has retained some of its ancient wildness; and afterwards
there was Ariccia with the Palazzo Chigi, and hills covered with forests
and viaducts spanning ravines which overflowed with foliage; and there
was yet Genzano, and yet Nemi, growing still wilder and more remote, lost
in the midst of rocks and trees.

Ah! how ineffaceable was the recollection which Pierre had retained of
Nemi, Nemi on the shore of its lake, Nemi so delicious and fascinating
from afar, conjuring up all the ancient legends of fairy towns springing
from amidst the greenery of mysterious waters, but so repulsively filthy
when one at last reaches it, crumbling on all sides but yet dominated by
the Orsini tower, as by the evil genius of the middle ages, which there
seems to perpetuate the ferocious habits, the violent passions, the knife
thrusts of the past! Thence came that Santobono whose brother had killed,
and who himself, with his eyes of crime glittering like live embers,
seemed to be consumed by a murderous flame. And the lake, that lake round
like an extinguished moon fallen into the depths of a former crater, a
deeper and less open cup than that of the lake of Albano, a cup rimmed
with trees of wondrous vigour and density! Pines, elms, and willows
descend to the very margin, with a green mass of tangled branches which
weigh each other down. This formida